During the three days of ESGS 2016 Ranida Games featured several of their developed titles, one of them caught the attention of many, and that would be their original fighting game called ‘Bayani: Kanino Ka Kakampi?’. With two fighter sticks and a huge display making a welcoming sight for any onlookers, everyone was excited to have a go on the title that is still early in development.

Bayani, in one statement, would be a universe wherein many of the known Philippine heroes would be reimagined in an alternate universe, given exaggerated strengths and powers based on their known traits and have them duke it out. Sounds awesome, right?

We were granted a quick interview with the artist behind the original concept, Mr. Anthony Dacayo. It turns out that he’s had this idea running since 2011, regularly posting it on his art page as his halloween themed submission. However thanks to the explosive popularity of Heneral Luna back in September 2015, it gave Anthony’s concept art suddenly catch fire and go viral with thousands upon thousands of shares. With such a strong response from social media, the management behind Ranida Games offered to help him make his fighting game dream into a reality at the end of that year.

Development for the game however, did not go so easily. Considering they had several other projects in the works, and the indie studio’s need to take them to keep the funds afloat, progress was on-and-off for Bayani. Anthony states that after a year they probably had a few months worth of work put into its creation. He takes this problem as an opportunity to work closely with everyone involved in this project and to refine his designs when the opportunity presents itself. Currently he is already at his fourth revision of some of his characters, complete with concepts for skills and moves to be used in the game.

Anthony Dacayo has also admitted that his love for fighting games and anime is what pushes him to put together this zany aesthetic of Philippine heroes while tuning the game to have familiar mechanics we see from other popular games. In passing, he had admitted that his favorite games would have to be Guilty Gear and Street Fighter. It was at this point that we realized that cross-ups in the game were deliberate, and were happy to see that they were.

While there is no clear indicator as to when this game will properly be released, it’s already known that it’s ambitiously looking at more than 10 characters to release. Those who are curious about its universe can find more about its post-apocalyptic world on the comic book they released during the event. He also mentioned that they’re looking for a publisher that can support them for releasing their second issue.

Currently the game looks and feels like it’s in its alpha stages, but one can’t help but look forward to this rather refreshing take on the personalities we’ve read and been taught so much about during our schooling years.